Hello, my Lovely Readers and welcome to our next George Smiley adventure and the only one that is only tentatively connected to the world of the Circus. Are you ready?? Let's go!!
An Agony Aunt (think Dear Abby) for a Christian magazine and a school teacher being forced into retirement have one thing in common: a dead woman. Carne is all abuzz with the story, but no one seems to know the truth. George Smiley enters our story from stage left in this tale of murder most foul.
Our story begins with Terrence Fielding . It's his last half at Carne School where he has held his post since the end of the War. He is making a point of having everyone to dinner, the boys all to tea before he leaves.
Then we meet Miss Ailsa Brimley, the aforementioned Agony Aunt, as she is going through her work mail. Miss Brimley hasn't always been an advice columnist. She used to work with George Smiley in the Circus during the War. And it is to George Smiley she turns when one ofher life-long subscribers sends her an odd letter.
In this letter Mrs. Stella Rode claims that her husband, a junior master at Carne school, is trying to kill her. What evidence does Miss Brimley have that Mrs Rode might be believed? Only the evidence of her long-term subscription and previous correspondence.
Under the guise of researching an obituary for Miss Brimley's magazine, George Smiley goes to the town of Carne. This is exactly the last place he would want to be, as his estranged wife Anne has ties to the town and by extension, the school. No one allows him to forget this for a minute.
As I'm sure you've guessed by now, this is the story of the murder of Stella Rhode. As the second Smiley book, and the only one not in the intelligence community, it has its flaws. I honestly feel its brevity is one of them. I would have liked a little more show and a little less tell in this particular story. I mean... it's off-brand anyway.
This book feels like a long-lost Christie outline that LeCarre found and into which he inserted Smiley in Poirot's place. As we plod along uncovering our tale one conversation at a time, we learn many background details. Kind of pocket litter (as a spy might say) for your characters. These are often throw-away lines of dialog or buried with a load of other details that, repeated in set make up character identity.
An example of this is the repeated likening of Smiley to a toad, and an ill-dressed toad at that. This is something I consider part of LeCarre's literary fingerprint.
The mystery itself has tones of Roger Ackroyd, yet is new and fresh. I really enjoyed the story, and I think you will, too.
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
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